Democratic Sentinel, Volume 5, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 November 1881 — How Tacks Are Made. [ARTICLE]

How Tacks Are Made.

Described in a few words, the process of making tacks is as follows h The iron, as received from the rolling-mills, is in sheets from three to twelve inches wide, and from three feet to nine feet in length, the thickness varying, according to the work into which it is to be made, from one-eighth to one-thirty-second of an inch. These sheets are all cut jpto about three-feet pieces, and by immersion in acid cleaned of the hard outside flinty scale. They are then chopped into strips of a width corresponding to the length of the nail or tack Required. Supposing the tack to be cut is an eight-ounce carpet tack, the stiijj. of iron, as chopped and ready for the machine, would be about eleven-sixteenths of an inch thick and three feet dong. This piece is placed firmly in the feeding apparatus, and by this arrangement carried between the knives of the machine. At each revolution of the balancewheel the knives cut off a small piece from the end of this plate. The piece cut off is pointed at one end, and square for forming the head at the other. It is then carried between two dies by the action of the knives, and these dies coming together form the body of the tack under the head. Enough of the iron projects beyond the face of the dies to form the head, and while, held firmly by them, a lever strikes this projecting piece into a round head. This as we have said before, is all done .during one revolution of the balance wheel, and the knives, as soon as the ; tack drops from the machine, are ready to cut off another piece. These machines are run at the rate of about 250 revolutions per minute. The shoe-nail machines for cutting headless shoe nails are run at about 500 revolutions per minute, and. cut from three to five nails»at each revolution. When we think of the number of machines being now run in thj United States, namely, about 1,7(0, and of the quantity of tacks affid niifc f Jhey can produce, it is as much of a mystery where they go as it is of the pins. The tack mkker-’ fifty »or si#ty years ago worked as follows : He took a rod of iron, and, after heating’ it ir. a charcoal fire, hammered if down 80 as to make a point, then fa piece was cut off, placed in a vise workda oy foot power, and the head formed) a few blows of the hammer. Health, Hope anil bmP flestored by Lydia E. Pinkham’s Vegetable Coimoiuidfiho positive cure for all female'cotijlaintp.